The Europeanization of Cinema : Interzones and Imaginative Communities

In this innovative study, German and film studies scholar Randall Halle advances the concept of "interzones"—geographical and ideational spaces of transit, interaction, transformation, and contested diversity—as a mechanism for analyzing European cinema. He focuses especially on films about borders, borderlands, and cultural zones as he traces the development of interzones from the inception of central European cinema to the avant-garde films of today. Throughout, he shows how cinema both reflects and engenders interzones that explore the important questions of Europe's social order: imperialism and nation-building in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; "first contact" between former adversaries (such as East and West Germany) following World War II and the Cold War; and migration, neo-colonialism, and cultural imperialism in the twenty-first century. Ultimately, Halle argues that today's cinema both produces and reflects imaginative communities. He demonstrates how, rather than simply erasing boundaries, the European Union instead fosters a network of cultural interzones that encourage cinematic exploration of the new Europe's processes and limits of connectivity, tolerance, and cooperation. | Contents Acknowledgments Introduction. The Idea of Bridges and the Image of Roads: Culture and Space 1. The Film Apparatus 2. Interzone History 3. Contiguous: The German-Polish Interzone 4. Interzone Dis/continuous: The Borders of Europe 5. "Outside" Europe 6. Interzone Xperimental: Migration and Moving Images Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index | "An original and ground-breaking view of the post-Wende central European landscape, drawn from a remarkable abundance of sources. Halle's writing is intelligent and even amusing—I couldn't put the book down until I had read it to the last page." —Janina Falkowska, author of Andrzej Wajda: History, Politics, and Nostalgia in Polish Cinema "Fascinating. The book's meticulous, insightful, and effective writing, which illuminates the ideational spaces of cinematic interzones from a European context, should have no trouble finding several imaginative communities of active readers."— Council For European Studies "An intelligent and innovative study."—Journal of Contemporary European Studies | Randall Halle is the Klaus W. Jonas Professor of German and film studies at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of German Film after Germany: Toward a Transnational Aesthetic . "In Europe and beyond, the moving image serves to imagine community and to instantiate a communal communicative space. These spaces do not not derive from harmonious but rather conflictual social configurations. To describe this space, Randall Halle presents the concept of interzone as a geographic and cultural space that develops through border crossings in the broadest sense, a place of transit, interaction, transformation, contentious and contested diveristy. To explore the communal communicative space made possible by cinema, Halle looks at cinematic relationships, especially European but also outside these borders. While treating German cinema as central, he also sweeps film production throughout central Europe, from the Baltic to the Sea of Marmara into the Mediterranean. In addition, Halle opens up a historical dimension that reaches from the pre-cinematic to contemporary post-film experiments with the moving image, from imperial Prussia to the role of European funding for contemporary films in Africa and Asia. Concentrating on the European Union's culture instead of its politics or economy, he combines analyses of films with their conditions of production, questions of both film aesthetics and financing. In this detailed investigation of cinematic space and place, Halle's themes come together to show cinema's ability to express multiple interzones in Europe and beyond"-- Provided by publisher This innovative study advances the concept of “interzones”—geographical and ideational spaces of transit, interaction, transformation, and contested diversity—as a mechanism for analyzing European cinema. The book focuses especially on films about borders, borderlands, and cultural zones as it traces the development of interzones from the inception of central European cinema to the avant-garde films of today. Throughout, it shows how cinema both reflects and engenders interzones that explore the important questions of Europe's social order: imperialism and nation-building in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; “first contact” between former adversaries (such as East and West Germany) following World War II and the Cold War; and migration, neo-colonialism, and cultural imperialism in the twenty-first century. Ultimately, the book argues that today's cinema both produces and reflects imaginative communities. It demonstrates how, rather than simply erasing boundaries, the European Union instead fosters a network of cultural interzones that encourage cinematic exploration of the new Europe's processes and limits of connectivity, tolerance, and cooperation. In this study, German and film studies scholar Randall Halle advances the concept of 'interzones' - geographical and ideational spaces of transit, interaction, transformation, and contested diversity - as a mechanism for analyzing European cinema. He focuses especially on films about borders, borderlands, and cultural zones as he traces the development of interzones from the inception of central European cinema to the avant-garde films of today